Job analysis, job description, job specification, classification and evaluation
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| job analysis, description and classification |
Introduction:
In writing about the terminologies above, it is important to know what the word “job” means. A layman’s interpretation of the word’s that it is a piece of work that must be done to earn a living for example a task, duty or chore. To a business man, according to fllipo (1980), a job refers to a group of positions that are similar as to kind and level of work. He gives the position of a personnel manager in an organization as a typical example since the manager is the only one un the organization.
Another scholar called obi in (2004) sees a job as a grouping of similar related positions , while the American national school board association (NSBA)(2004) defines it in the context of school personnel management , as a group of responsibilities assigned by an employer to a staff member. This association believes that the control of each individual job is the school administrators chief means of regulating the direction and pace of the work effort throughout the school system, another scholar who holds a similar view, believes that a job has the following characteristics:
1. Each job whether occupied or vacant, has its identity in the organization
2. A job is governed by application laws, regulation, policies and instructions
3. A job comes into being through the action of management.
4. The responsibility and qualification requirements in an organization do change from time to time. This change may be abrupt or gradual, depending on a number of reasons.
5. A job may be created for a limited period of time (temporary) or for an indefinite period of time (permanent)
6. A job is capable of being conceal by the authority that creates it
A job therefore is defined by the list of tasks assigned to it. This makes it possible for one person to be an incumbent of two jobs. For example time tracer can be assigned by the principal to collects fees.
Job analysis:
Every applicant for a position in an organization is entitled to some piece of information about the position. The information which tells the applicant of the nature of the job and qualification requirements is purposely released to motivate the applicant. This first step in the process of recruitment is known to modern management as job analysis.
Job analysis has been define by many scholars who include flippo (1980) he defines it as the process of studying and collecting information relating to the operations responsibilities of a specific job. While Cuming in (1980) sees it as a process of examining a job to identify its component parts and circumstances in which it is performed, the NSBA in ( 1982) defines it as the process of gathering , organizing and evaluating work related information. To the association, job analysis is a means to any of these several ends.
Job analysis therefore can be said to be a technique which has been evolved to study the detailed content of a job and all the relevant factors that influence it. Job analysis has job description and job specification as its immediate products. It is one of the most pervasive tasks of personnel management.
Uses of job analysis data
The major uses of job analysis are as follows:
1. Restructuring of jobs: job analysis data can uncover situations in which employees are performing work significantly above or below their levels or expertise nearly all the time. This is because they have been given numerous duties that essentially not related to the primary content of their jobs. These situations usually develop from the failure of the organization ot respond to changing conditions, resulting in insufficient use of human resource in the organization, for example where many jobs have been eliminated by reduction in force, the remaining employees may be assigned additional and unrelated tasks. On the other hand, job restructuring can be an effective procedure for eliminating dead end jobs that hold back employing development, weaken employee morale, and contributes to high turnover rates.
2. Developing more relevant training programs: in most cases, the training are based on perception of the skills and knowledge required for adequate performance in a given job. Job analysis therefore helps to identify specific skills and knowledge, requirement for each job and aid the trainer in developing the training programs for the trainees.
3. Establishing realistic job qualifications: because some managers lack adequate understanding of the nature of the work preferred in their organization, they rely on irrelevant criteria when preparing entry and allow the inappropriate candidates slip in and screen out those who are capable of performing the jobs. Properly identified and analyzed task data will give an administrator a better idea of what kinds of work experience and educational background are required for both entry and promotion.
4. Devising better and legally safer tests for employment: written test have been critised as being discriminatory and for failing to predict employees performance accurately, and in some cases, court have ruled that they cannot prove to be job related , in addition their discriminatory impact is in violation of employment law. Employers should use selection procedures that best serve their interest and identify those applicants most capable of performing the jobs, and not those most adept or skilled at taking test.
5. Improving evaluation of job performance: evaluation is a primary tool for ensuring that policies and management decisions are implemented properly throughout the organization. Without job related criteria, evaluation or performance appraisals is always dubious and invalid because performance standard are vague and refer to personal characteristics, for example “initiative” and ‘reliability” believed to be in someway desirable. These may not be interpreted in the same way by different supervisors, and not really important to adequate job performance. Accurate job content identification and analysis can provide the ground work for job related and results oriented appraisal criteria.
6. Providing a resource for updating job descriptions: since the responsibilities and activities of most organization change with time, once accurate job description can become outdated. Data based on recent observation of an interview with employees as they perform their jobs are the basic ingredient of accurate job descriptions.
7. Providing a resources for on the job counseling:
8. When personnel officials have detailed information concerning the basic content and qualification of every job in an organization, they are better able to give comprehensive career counseling to employees.
9. Identifying safety hazards: job analysis can be used to identify current potential dangers in job situations. Similarly , job data analysis can be helpful in wages and salary administration, job development for the disadvantaged or the physical handicapped, manpower planning and in the establishment of management information systems.
A purposeful job analysis therefore will require careful planning, the cooperation of the staff, a commitment by the organization. Job analysis should be thought of as a method for achieving some specific management objectives. Thus, it can be said to be used for validation of hiring procedures, training, job evaluation, performance appraisals, career development, counseling, labor relations, and job re-engineering.
The basic job analysis data
In a school system, a job analysis study would require the collection of data such as:
1. A list of school system jobs titles, their places on an organizations chart, their line and staff relationships.
2. The number of positions for each job.
3. The percentage of varicose minority groups holding the job titles
4. The salary range for the job titles: the relationship of the range for various titles in the overall salary schedule, the association of any title with merit pay, overtime pay and other pay supplement.
5. Equipment, tools and materials used by employees in various job titles.
6. A list of duties; the tasks elements of tasks , basic work , function , priority ranking of importance of duties , estimated time spent on each duty etc.
7. Role analysis of duties; whether the job title holders physically perform alone at in cooperation with others, coordinate or evaluate those performing the duties.
8. The educational, certification and experience requirement associated with various job titles. The skills, aptitudes, abilities and other characteristics considered necessary.
9. The promotional and transfer lines to and from each job; actual number and patterns of transfer’s promotion in recent years.
From the
data, it can be seen that job analysis is a method for sub dividing work duties
into more narrowly defines unit that can be studied and considered for possible
elimination, combination, rearrangement and simplification. A welled prepared
job analysis will help the organization.
Job analysis outcomes:
1. Job description
2. Job specification
3. Job evaluation
Job description
Job description can simply be said to be a blue print or guide for work to be accomplish. It is intended to meet the needs of both the staff members who are to do the work, and management which must see that the work is done. A well prepared job description represents an accurate job picture that is understandable and meaningful to the job holder , supervisor and other informed persons both within and outside the system , job description must remain up to date and valid regardless of who holds the job, and functions to improve personnel management.
Cuming in (1980) defines job description as a broad statement of the purpose, scope, duties and responsibilities of a particular job. It is believed that a good job description should;
1. Have specific job titles
2. Indicate the kind and extent of skills knowledge and abilities required by the job
3. Make clear the job position in the chain supervision
4. Relate the job to its ultimate client
5. Outline the major performance responsibilities that make up the jobs content.
6. State the terms of employment and make reference to evaluative criteria for the job ;
7. State how often the incumbent performance will be evaluated according to the evaluative criteria.
8. Provide the incumbent acknowledgement of the details of his job description.
The characteristics constitute the format which can be summarized as locator (file no) job title, qualification, reports to, supervised by and job goals. Other are performance responsibilities, terms of employment, evaluation, approved by (supervisor signature line), and reviewed and agreed to by (incumbent signature line).
The uses of job description
Job description which is the basics resource for planning the ways and means by which a job will be done , is useful to an organization in many ways.
For example it can be use to;
1. Provide the basis for recruiting and interviewing job candidates, and for personnel planning and budgeting.
2. Clarify employee duties and responsibilities
3. Helps a staff member see his or her role and contribution in relation to those of other employees.
4. Help staff member see how his or her job relates to the organizations overall goals and objectives.
5. Helps set fair and objective standard for supervising and evaluating job performers
6. Provide data for wage and salary administration .serve as guides for part time and substitutes
7. Indicates inconsistencies, inefficiencies, ambiguity and overlap in job assignment and workflow.
8. Clarity lines of authority and communication
9. Provides guide for the orderly expansion or contraction or work force. Provides legal safeguards for dealing in just a manner in cases of employee termination.
Job description is therefore an organized, factual statement of the duties and responsibilities of a specific job, it tells what is to be done, how it is done and why it is done. In fact it is a standard of function because it defines the appropriate and authorized content of a job.
Advantages of job description
1. Assign employees t perform their duties
2. Employee monitoring.
3. Developing , training of major programmers
4. Planning work force
5. Organizational appraisal performers
6. The process of Selection and recruiting of staff
7. Job remuneration through job evaluation
Job specification
This is one of the immediate products of job analysis flippo in (1980) sees it as a statement of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly. In other words, it refers to standard of personnel or qualification of the personnel required for acceptable performance.
Job specification is done usually after a complete and correct job description has been prepared. Since, it is concerned with the human requirement for the job or work the following questions are always asked;
1. Does the job really need a high school certificate?
2. What is the minimum level of intelligence needed or required?
3. What is the level or how much of the experience required?
4. Does the person possesses the basics at the beginning or be developed soon after the job?
In a school system, it will be better to establish high requirement for formal education and training backgrounds. The employer of staff can stipulate possession results in better job performance than those with different qualifications. Job specification provides a foundation for selection, matching the man to the job and defining the responsibilities.
Advantages of job specification
1. It decides on benefits, salaries, promotion, and other packages
2. Staff work evaluation
3. Staff performance monitoring
4. Staff training and development
5. Justification for every decision that is taken
6. Improve selection process
Job classification
This is the process of grouping positions with similar work requirement. The principles underlying it is “equal pay” for substantially” equal work” with a variation in pay based on substantial differences in the nature of work. The differences may be caused by;
1. The degree of difficulty of the job and the skills it require ;
2. The anticipated degree of impact on the organization if the job is done well or poorly;
3. The extent to which the job holder is called upon to make independent judgment and decisions
4. The frequency and closeness of supervision.
5. The job holders interaction with other position within the organization and contact with members of the community and other educational agencies
6. The experience of certification required
Advantages of job classification
1. It makes recruiting , placing , training , promoting , transferring and reducing of work force easily
2. It simplifies the management of employees.
3. It provides supervisors with a convenient basis for general comparative checks on employee performers.
4. Job classification facilitates the collection and analysis of information for manpower forecasting and budgeting;
5. It helps the administrators to identity overlapping duties, unnecessary levels of supervision, unclear delegation of authority and inefficient separation of tasks or duties.
6. It provides management with salary control that is important for fiscal integrity.
7. It provides employees an equitable salary structure.
It can be seen clearly that a good classification system meets all legal and regulatory requirements and contributes to better management and employee morale. Also a well articulated job classification system makes possible a smooth running system to be achieved, especially when personnel specialist and principal officers (line manager) fully understand, and fulfill their respective roles and communicate frequently without delay and friction.
Job evaluation
This is one of the grading processed used by the management. Job evaluation has been defined by flippo in (1980) as a systematic and orderly process of determine the worth of a job in relation to other jobs. According to him, the process is used to determine the correct rate of pay.
Methods of evaluating jobs
1. Points rating: this involve establishing the evaluation factors ( skills, experience, special aptitude responsibility, accuracy, mental effort, manual effort, trustworthiness ,working conditions and degree of supervision exercised ) allocating a maximum number of each factor, making an assessment of each factors and allocate number of points, and finally , casting all the allocated points and comparing with a salary/ point table to ascertain the salary grade.
2. Factors compares ; this involves selecting key jobs, ranking the jobs by salary levels on the basis of five factors (mental level, degree of skills, physical requirement , responsibility and working conditions) allocating a proportion of the salary to each factor , and lastly ,ranking the job outside number the key jobs by factor comparison.
3. Ranking: this is the use of an overall subjective assessment of each job to determine a relative value. This simple technique is possible when the number of jobs to be compared is few. It has been very difficult to use in large organizations that have many jobs.
4. Classification: In these techniques, a table of grades is prepared by establishing various factors which are common to a number of jobs at a similar level. The factors usually used are depth of experience, task complexity, training period, special aptitudes, degree of responsibility, level of authority and degree of initiative. The jobs are then grouped and ranked according to the table. Job evaluation is important because it leads to easy achievement of the organizational objectives.
Advantages of job evaluation
1. It makes recruitment process very easy for organization
2. The employee is provided with plan, as well as a legacy and also promotional benefits
3. Gives insight on pay level and grade for employees
4. Providing insight on the functions and position in various organization
5. Provide assist in creating the job specification, and other job analysis outlines.
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